What a glorious mish-mash this is!
Dracula vs. Frankenstein began life as Satan's Bloody
Freaks, a standard mad science flick featuring J. Carrol Naish as
a mad scientist and Lon Chaney, Jr as his faithful servant. However,
the completed film was not to the liking of producer/co-writer Samuel
M. Sherman, and the movie went back into production to add new scenes
with Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster. However, the new ending
didn't have the "punch" that Sherman wanted, so a new one
was shot with a different actor in the Monster's makeup.1
As a result of its wacky production history and somewhat shabby
production values, Al Adamson's Dracula vs. Frankenstein is
one of the great "bad" movies of all time.

In Venice Beach, CA, there's a
sideshow exhibit called the "Creature Emporium" run by the
wheelchair-bound Dr. Duryea (Naish). If the thrill-seekers knew what
went on in Duryea's secret lab, though, they'd tear up their tickets
and run. The mad scientist is developing a serum made from the blood
of exceptionally traumatized women. His specimens are collected by
his hulking, mute manservant Groton (Lon Chaney, Jr.), who clutches a
puppy to his chest when he's not wielding an ax. One night, Duryea is
visited by Count Dracula (Zandor Vorkov), who knows that the doctor
is really the last of the Frankenstein line. Together, they resurrect
the original Frankenstein Monster. Dracula wants Duryea's serum for
his own purposes, but all evil plots are threatened when a nosy Vegas
singer, Judith (Regina Carrol, Adamson's wife), comes looking for her
missing sister. Can Duryea perfect his serum? Will it make Dracula
immortal-er? Could somebody tell Groton about the rabbits,
George?

The attempts to join the new Dracula and Frankenstein
footage to Satan's Bloody Freaks are equal parts clever and
inane. Adamson and Sherman were assisted somewhat in their efforts by
the fact that the original movie is extremely dark, with pure black
backgrounding scenes in Duryea's exhibit. Thus it became easy to
insert new shots of Dracula stalking Judith and her friends as they
investigate the Creature Emporium without creating any mismatches in
the footage. However, a new scene with Dracula confronting Duryea
(Naish was brought back for a single day of shooting) is rife with
inane exposition that desperately tries to make a semi-logical
connection between the old footage and the new plot. Dracula
essentially tells Duryea his own (very convoluted) life story, while
the doctor solemnly nods and occasionally restates information.
Amusingly, despite the reams and reams of blather and exposition,
Dracula never gives a particularly convincing explanation for why
he's brought the Frankenstein Monster into this mess. I'm sure it
wasn't, "So I can fight him at the end of the movie."

More
extreme inconsistencies show up with the new ending, which was shot
with absolutely no budget in upstate New York.2 Actor Anthony Eisley, who plays Judith's hippie-beatnik love interest
Mike Howard, was unavailable, so a bit was shot where Dracula uses
his mystical ring to fire a bolt of energy at Mike (director Adamson
standing in for Eisley), who promptly combusts, messily removing him
from the movie. Dracula's makeup, which up until Mike's assassination
had actually been impressively subtle, suddenly switches to a garish
pasty white with black, raccoon-like rings around the eyes and a set
of improbably large fangs jutting out of the mouth. Surprisingly, the
change in actors for the Frankenstein Monster is barely noticeable.
The immobilizing facial makeup is the same, although he has grown an
impressive set of claws in a very short span.

Dracula
vs. Frankenstein marks the screen debut of Zandor Vorkov (really
Roger Engel, stock broker). Adamson chose him for Dracula over
Sherman's recommendation of John Carradine. Vorkov, whose nom de
screen was chosen for him by Forrest J Ackerman3, is not
the worst Dracula ever, although he's hardly the best. In his quiet
moments, he does exude some menace, mostly by remaining very still.
Unfortunately, he spends most of his scenes on a non-stop ramble and
it's here where it becomes apparent that Vorkov just isn't
comfortable with dialogue. His posture is a little too stiff, his
walk just slightly unsteady. You can almost see the thoughts zipping
through his brain: "Okay, how would Dracula say this next line?
What is the next line? Dammit, I bet Lugosi never worried
about this stuff." One wonders if Vorkov knew that Adamson would
go on to add an echo effect to his every word, making this Dracula a
memorable one, although not for the right reasons.

While Vorkov made his debut, two of
his co-stars turned in the final performances of their career, sad
swan songs for actors who deserved better. Naish, at least, maintains
a modicum of dignity, although he's forced to speak some unfortunate
dialogue ("All illusions look real or they wouldn't be
illusions, would they?"). It's not a great performance, not with
that accent that vacillates between German and Brooklyn, but it's a
serviceable one. Chaney, alas, is another story entirely. His body
bloated from years of alcoholism and his voice silenced by the
ravages of throat cancer, Chaney is a pathetic figure who lumbers
through the movie, desperation etched into the lines of his face. His
character, Groton, spends much of the film in a child-like state, so
Chaney mugs wildly and pets a puppy, a shadow of his Lenny from Of
Mice and Men. Sherman recalled that one day after shooting, he
was driving some of the actors back to the hotel and they decided to
stop off for a drink. Chaney, already quite drunk, opted to stay in
the car because he didn't want his fans to see him in that state.4 And we don't enjoy seeing you like that, Lon. It breaks my
heart a little.

In their screenplay, Sherman and
co-writer William Pugsley create a world that resembles our own on
the surface, but the people don't quite act within our understanding
of human nature. For instance, after Judith has a freakout in a local
hippie club (thanks to a drugged coffee), she wakes up in a strange
bed in a strange house, with a strange man watching over her. Rather
than treat the whole situation with suspicion and panic, she accepts
the explanation provided by the man (Mike Howard) without question
and thanks him for his help. When Judith and Mike receive the news of
a homicide/kidnapping, Mike coolly apologizes, "It's not
usually this gory on the premises." Sgt. Martin shoots at Groton
when the henchman is looking particularly cuddly and non-threatening,
presumably because the police have a copy of the script and know that
Groton's really a bad guy. My favorite moment of "um, okay..."
comes from Mike's friend Strange (Without Warning director
Greydon Clark). Emerging from Duryea's Creature Emporium, the hippie
discovers a tire and declares, "Oh, it has meaning! Everything
has meaning!" The meaning he infers is that he can use the tire
to play a game of Fetch with his girlfriend. Yeah, it's kind of
brilliant in an accidental way.

You could start
a drinking game based on the number of times actors have a scene
together but never share a shot. While this might seem to be a
symptom of the reshoots, it's actually evident in the original
Satan's Bloody Freaks footage as well. Duryea has most of his
conversations with Groton from across the very large room. In all
likelihood, the actors were shot at separate times so that a
low-budget outfit like Independent-International wouldn't have to pay
both Naish and Chaney at the same time. This would also explain why
characters like biker Rico (Russ Tamblyn) and Police Sgt. Martin (Jim
Davis) show up at random intervals, despite having almost nothing to
do with the main plot -- they add semi-recognizable names to the cast
(both Tamblyn and Davis are credited as "Special Guest Stars")
without requiring them to share scenes with the top-billed Naish and
Chaney.5

Amidst all this unintentional
wackiness, though, there are moments where Dracula vs.
Frankenstein really shines. The opening is well-directed and
edited, as Dracula, under the cloak of night, unearths the
Frankenstein Monster from his grave. This atmospheric sequence flows
with spookiness, a feeling which is never replicated later. The
climactic title fight doesn't disappoint (despite Dracula's
insistence on talking throughout), as vampire and creature duke it
out deep in the forest, their shaded forms melding into the
background and out again. The struggle ends more like Holyfield-Tyson
than Foreman-Ali, which is appropriate, all things considered. To
give visual oomph to Dracula's exposure to the sun, Adamson and
Sherman came up with a solution both effective and ingeniously
low-budget -- they smeared mud into his makeup, giving his skin the
appearance of charring and crumbling.

More important than anything,
however, is that Dracula vs. Frankenstein is damned
entertaining. There's hardly a boring minute in the whole
hour-and-a-half, something that can't be said of other classically
bad horror movies like Manos: The Hands of Fate and The
Creeping Terror. I've watched Dracula vs. Frankenstein at
least three times in the course of reviewing it and each time, I've
found new weirdness and amusing bits of unintentional hilarity. Bad
filmmaking can equal great fun, if you enter into it with open eyes
and a sarcastic mind. Dracula vs. Frankenstein is proof enough
of that.

Comments

Nice to see you giving DvF a nod here. This film was our contribution to Cinema Styles' "Spirit of Ed Wood" blogathon but we are STILL toiling over its riches.

Even though it has been reviewed by at least 4 bloggers in the past 2 months or so (including yourself), we can't believe no one else sees the intensely complex thematic masterpiece that the Maciste Brothers do! We know you guys are drawn to watch and write about it -- but we think the sheer ambition of it's construction is something that WILL eventually rear its pointed little head at y'all. That eventually will probably be sometime by the end of this week as we proudly deconstruct this film once and for all.

Part of the reason I put "bad" in quotes is that any film as entertaining as Dracula vs. Frankenstein must be, in some way, good. Truly bad films are boring films. Films like The Cell 2 and the original Prom Night.